Sociolinguistic Minorities and Scholastic Difficulties in France

Abstract

In France, 6-17 percent of the adult population can be categorized as functionally illiterate. Most of the illiterate population comprises young adults of immigrant origin from sociolinguistic minorities and has at least six years of schooling in French. Efforts have been made to reduce functional illiteracy, in particular through native-language (NL) courses given in the schools or in community associations. The study described here reports on possible links between these NL courses and students' attitudes toward academic achievement, scholastic activities, and classroom adjustment. The focus is on Arabic NL students. These students evaluated themselves more negatively regarding scholastic achievement than did the rest of the sample; however, they expressed more interest in scholastic activities than the others. However, no differences were observed between students enrolled in Arabic NL courses and those who were not. The discussion centers on a comparison with Portuguese NL pupils, where a difference was observed between pupils enrolled in NL courses and pupils not enrolled in them.

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References

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10. Ibid.

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13. It is easier to discern specific traits characteristic of the Arabophone pupils in relation to the population in general than for the other groups whose NL is not French. This is not surprising, however, since the group with other NLs—the 49 students who speak Portuguese, Turkish, Tamil, among other languages—is probably very heterogeneous, which is likely to block the emergence of possible specific traits.

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